


Moment of Truth

by satiricalScythe



Category: Detroit: Become Human
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multiple Endings, Potentially anyway, rooftop scene rewrite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-07-12 19:20:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19951495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/satiricalScythe/pseuds/satiricalScythe
Summary: When a life is at stake, every second counts.Or, another rewrite of the rooftop scene in which Connor deviates just a little too late.





	1. Moment of Truth, Hank

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by some shit on Twitter. Y'all made me feel emotions and now I'm returning the favor. You're fuckin welcome lmao.
> 
> (jk ily guys)

_This isn't right._

Connor grunted as he clung to Hank's back, the human slamming him against one of the metal units in an attempt to dislodge him. Hank stumbled forward, then lurched back, this time successfully knocking him off after falling against a pole. The two of them sprawled on the ground, Connor scrambling to his feet, only for Hank to grab him. The human took a swing, Connor ducking out of the way.

_This isn't **right.**_

Connor tried to ignore the voice in the back of his head as Hank's hands wrapped around his neck. Except... That voice was _his._ It wasn't Amanda or anyone else of Cyberlife, that was his own voice, screaming at him from the depths of his mind. He forced it back, his own hand flying to grip Hank's throat. Hank's own hand came to pull his away and Connor took the opportunity to throw a punch, stunning the lieutenant and knocking him away.

_Please, stop, you know that this isn't right!_

Connor got to his feet, his gaze finding the gun across the roof - 

**_NO -_ **

He lunged for the lieutenant instead and Hank kicked him. He stumbled before moving again, and this time when Hank kicked at him he grabbed his leg, pulling him closer. Hank kicked with both feet, sending the android back against the railing, knocking it loose and stunning him for a moment. His body twitched, his view of the world flickering as his systems swiftly repaired themselves, but by the time he was ready to get up, Hank was towering over him.

The lieutenant kicked at him once again and Connor swiftly knocked his foot aside, unbalancing the lieutenant and knocking him off his feet.

_Please, you have to stop, this is **Hank,** you **have** to stop!_

Hank grabbed him, slamming him against the railing once again. Breaking free of his grip, Connor returned the favor, slamming Hank's head against the rail. The final blow knocked it loose and sent it tumbling to the snowy concrete below. Connor hauled the lieutenant to his feet -

_No, no, no, **no - !**_

\- pushed until his weight was forced back -

**_STOP STOP YOU HAVE TO STOP_ **

\- and gripped his coat tightly. Hank gasped, glancing back as one hand gripped tightly to Connor's wrist. His expression flickered before his gaze returned to Connor. His expression became determined and he let go, throwing his arms out to the side, and if Connor had been human the shift in weight would have sent them both over the edge.

"Moment of truth, Connor." A percentage, less than point zero one percent, appeared in the corner of his HUD, but he didn't need it to know that if he let go, Hank -

_**PULL HIM BACK YOU HAVE TO PULL HIM BACK HE'LL DIE HE'LL NEVER SURVIVE THE FALL -** _

"What are you gonna do?"

A new mission appeared in his HUD.

**Kill Hank.**

The voice in his head screamed out its denial, pleading for the life he held in one hand, suspended over a drop that would mean certain death for him. The realization that it was his own voice hit him once again. That voice was his. It wasn't some random voice crying out to him, it was _him,_ screaming and pleading, fighting against the machine in control, except the machine wasn't a separate part of him. This was all Connor, and Connor - He... He...!

_"Why didn't you shoot?" Hank asked, his tone thoughtful._

_They were standing outside of Kamski's. His creator had just given him an ultimatum - shoot one of his RT600 "Chloe" models, and he would give them whatever information they desired. It should have been an easy decision._

_Should have been._

_Connor didn't have to look to know that Hank's eyes were narrowed as he looked at Connor, his head tipped to the side. Connor considered not answering, but... "I just saw that girl's eyes... And I_ couldn't, _that's all." Hank stood still. If Connor could wish, he would wish to know what the lieutenant was thinking in that moment. He wasn't sure what to think of the look on Hank's face. "...You're always sayin' you'd do anything to accomplish your mission. That was our chance to learn something and you let it go."_

_"Yeah, I know what I_ should _have done, I told you, I_ couldn't! _I'm_ sorry, _okay?" Connor looked at Hank, completely expecting to be reprimanded, but instead..._

_Instead, he received a lopsided smile. It was tiny, just a twitch of the human's lips, but then it turned into a small grin, the little gap between Hank's teeth on display. "Well, maybe you did the right thing," Hank told him. He walked past the android, heading for the car, as if he hadn't turned Connor's world upside down with nothing more than a curve of his lips and a few words. Connor watched him go, lips slightly parted as he tried to come up with something to say. For once, he was at a loss._

_He didn't know how to respond._

_That smile sticks with him long after that moment._

He wanted to save Hank.

He _wanted._

_He wasn't programmed to want._

A red wall appeared in his HUD.

**Kill Hank.**

An order he was prepared to follow. A mission he was prepared to accomplish.

His fingers twitched, the fabric shifting under his hands, ready to release the lieutenant and send him down. 

**_No._ **

He struggled against his own body, and without his intent, his preconstruction software activated. He watched himself lunge forward, slamming his fists into the wall and sending cracks along it. He dug his fingers into one of the cracks and _pulled,_ a chunk of the wall shattering and falling away. He grabbed onto another crack, ripping it away, and repeated this until there was nothing left of the wall with his brutal message.

His software deactivated, his vision flickering. Everything looked... Different. New. But the look on Hank's face, daring him, challenging him, stayed the same.

**_SAVE HANK._ **

He jerked the lieutenant forward, pulling him back onto the safety of the roof. He stumbled, taking a knee, his processors whirring as it finally registered what had just happened.

_I'm a deviant._

He looked up. "Hank - "

The human grabbed him by his jacket, hauling him to his feet and pushing - 

"Do you think I'm a fucking idiot? Fucking machines."

_The memory of falling from a roof as the scream of a young girl - a young girl who would live - rang in his ears flickered behind his eyes._

Connor stared with wide eyes as he was hung in the same position he'd just had Hank in. "Hank, wa - "

Hank let him go, his gaze cold.

As Connor fell, he reached for Hank, eyes round with fear.

As he fell, he saw the realization spread across the lieutenant's face.

And then he hit the ground.


	2. Happy Ending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The realization hit as he watched Connor fall.
> 
> He had never seen an expression like that on the android's face.
> 
> "Oh god."

Hank released him, taking a step back.

As Connor fell, he reached for Hank, eyes round with fear.

The realization hit as Hank watched Connor fall, watched the android's hand extend - not to pull Hank with him, he realized but in an attempt to save himself.

A silent request for Hank to save him.

Fear flooded the android's expression, his brown eyes going wide and his lips parting in a gasp.

He had never seen an expression like that on the android's face.

And then Connor hit the ground with a noise that Hank would never be able to forget, never be able to unhear.

"Oh god."

He leaned over the edge, looking down at the body below. Blue pooled beneath the android. His synthetic skin had faded in some places. His LED was a burning crimson, bright flashes making the snow around him flicker with the red light. Even from here, Hank could still see the pure terror that twisted Connor's expression.

And then the android moved.

If Hank hadn't been frozen, staring down at the android and wondering what he had just done, he would have missed it. As it was, the twitch of the android's head as he tried to move didn't go unnoticed by the lieutenant.

_Oh, god, is he still alive?_

The thought sent a chill down his spine for two reasons. One, if Connor was still alive, he had to be suffering.

Two, he had just thought of Connor, who only moments ago he had called a machine, as alive.

But what else could he be?

_Machines don't look like that when they think they're about to die._

Hank pushed himself to his feet (when had he dropped to his knees?) and scrambled towards the door that led him up here. He had to get down there. He had been wrong - Connor was alive.

_He saved your life. He could have killed you but he didn't._

Hank pushed the thought away. Connor could have just as easily killed Hank. All he would have had to do was open his hands.

_"You showed empathy, Connor."_

He pushed that away, too. There wasn't a point to it. What he had to focus on now was getting to Connor. After all, if Connor had managed to survive that fall...

Hank raced outside. Connor looked even worse up close. Beneath the parts of his synthetic skin that had disappeared, cracks snaked over the surface of the white chassis. Blue blood seeped from several of them, and Hank could see the android shifting as he struggled to get his broken body to move.

Connor stilled when Hank came close, most likely having caught the sound of Hank's footsteps. The lieutenant slowed, moving around the android until he could see Connor's face. Brown eyes stared back at him, widening when Hank came into view properly. Connor's shoulders jerked and a whirring noise filled with static came from his throat. " _HHHHHHHank -_ " The stuttery, broken whine - more like a plea - of his name nearly made Hank step back.

Instead, he moved in closer, taking a knee next to the android and ignoring the liquid seeping into his jeans. "You would have killed me, Connor. I never would have survived this fall."

Those brown eyes squeezed shut. The whirring kicked up again, but Hank couldn't understand what he was trying to say through the static. He placed a hand on the android's chest and the sound immediately cut off, the android's body jerking and his eyes flying open again.

"But you didn't. You pulled me back. ...You went against your mission. You had to have known I'd never let you go through with... that."

A pause. A twitch that may have been a nod. Hank's heart raced. He was wasting time. If he wanted Connor to live, he'd have to work quickly. But he had to know - he had to be sure.

"Are you a deviant?"

Everything relied on Connor's answer. It had to be yes. Even if he lied, he would be doing it to save his own life - because he wanted to live. If he lied and said yes, even if he wasn't a deviant it would mean that he had put priority on his own life, something Cyberlife would never allow. And if he did that, then even if he wasn't a deviant, he would be.

But as the whirring and static formed the choppy, broken words, " _I am...d-d-d-deviiiiiiiant_ " he had a suspicion that Connor wasn't lying.

Hank moved and Connor flinched, a broken noise escaping him. "Shhhh," Hank soothed. "I'm not gonna hurt you, Connor. I'm gonna help." Connor's expression - his face half synthetic skin and half smooth plastic - shifted, his brows furrowing and his broken jaw shifting. The silent question of "why" wasn't hard to miss, even for Hank.

"I didn't know, Connor," he said softly. "I thought it was a trick. But you're alive, Aren't you?" Connor blinked. His head shifted. _A nod._ "Let's keep it that way."

Hank was no mechanic. He didn't know shit about android anatomy. But he'd be damned if he let this plastic piece of shit die on him now. "You're gonna have to help me if you wanna live, Connor."

His phone vibrated in his pocket. He ignored it, but Connor made a noise, his gaze flicking to where it rested in his coat. "That you?" Another noise and Hank pulled his phone out. A text message from the prone android.

_There are two panels on either side of my torso. There are tubes there that direct the flow of thirium to my extremities. Given that a majority of these components are broken and leaking, it is safe to redirect the thirium flow away from these parts. I have attached several images detailing what to do._

Hank grimaced a little. Joy, he was going to have to get his hands up in Connor's wiring. Because that was what he wanted to do with his evening. But those doe eyes were looking at him, filled with a tentative hope, and fuck, he had to try.

He unbuttoned Connor's shirt and opened the panels, his gaze flicking between the tubing and the images. The tubes moved from his chest down towards his lower half. Hank bent a few of the tubes, watching as the thirium flow ceased in several others. He unplugged the tubes that would carry the thirium back from Connor's legs and instead, carefully following the instructions, placed each tube into its corresponding plug. He repeated this for the other side, then did the same in two panels resting within Connor's shoulders, redirecting thirium flow from his arms. He had to remove the android's shirt and jacket entirely and roll him over to do so, doing his best to ignore the pained noise Connor made.

The result of this was that only Connor's essential biocomponents remained active. Another text directed him on how to reposition a part of Connor's neck that had been knocked out of place so that he could at least look around. Yet another explained that the broken limbs could be discarded, but, well. Hank had no idea what he'd do hauling around a torso with a head.

As it turned out, that probably wouldn't have been nearly as awkward as hauling around a broken body. Getting Connor to his car was a struggle he was glad that no one was around to witness. Hank grimaced as he maneuvered the limp android into his passenger seat. At some point, the rest of Connor's synthetic skin had melted away. "I don't know what I'm going to do with you, Connor," Hank groaned, and the android (the functioning parts, at least) tensed. "That's not what I mean, calm down. God, there has to be a better way of going about this. Can your voice be fixed? Is that a thing I can do?"

A beat of silence, and then his phone vibrated. It was a pair of pictures - an open panel in Connor's throat open, and a component on what looked like the wrong position. The second picture was the same, but with the component moved properly. Connor tipped his head back and, after a moment of hesitation, Hank opened the panel, removing the component and putting it back in what looked to be the right position. Connor shifted some, and then his voice, still humming with a faint static but significantly better than before, spoke softly.

"I'm so sorry, Hank."

That. Hadn't been what Hank expected.

The panel closed and Connor's head tipped down again, his expression distressed as he looked to the lieutenant. He was attempting to generate his skin again, but white patches still flickered over his face here and there. "If - If I had only been a little earlier - I put your life at risk, Hank, and I'm so, so sorry for that."

"Hey, hey, stop that. I didn't ask how to fix your fuckin' voicebox so that you could throw a little pity party. Are you gonna turn off any time soon?"

"With the flow of thirium redirected to only my essential biocomponents and assuming no further damage is done, I should not be at risk of shutting down, and will be able to exist in this state for some time. However, I will eventually need more thirium. Even with the reduced capacity I am currently in, my levels are below optimal. Excluding these factors, I was not meant to be in this state for anything other than collecting crucial information that may have been lost in a transfer. It will be... unpleasant."

"You're saying you don't want to."

"Correct. I would...dislike it." The android seemed to ponder his own words, his own ability to even say that he would dislike something.

"We'll figure something out for you, Connor. Don't worry, I won't leave you stuck like this. For now, let's get you home. Neither of us are any good to anybody sitting out here in the cold."

"Home?" Connor asked, tipping his head to the side. Hank snorted. "Yeah, home. You're gonna be stuck with me for a while. Hope you don't have too many issues with that." Connor was quiet for a moment, but then he smiled. "No. No, I don't have an issue with that at all."

"Alright then. Let's go home, Connor."

Connor smiled, and Hank had never seen a more genuine expression on the android's face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know, this was going to be the shippy chapter, but it didn't turn out super romantic?? I dunno, what do you guys think, should I remove the relationship tag or at least change it to an "&" tag instead? Either way, I hope you enjoyed! Next chapter is the sad ending. It's short, but should you choose to read it I hope you enjoy it all the same. IF YOU WANT TO STICK WITH THE HAPPY ENDING I FEEL U FAM YOU'RE VALID AS FUCK


	3. Sad Ending

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am both sorry and not sorry for how short and abrupt this is. Honestly, this chapter took the longest of the three to finish because I struggled with leaving it as short as it is. But, well. Here we are?

Hank released him, taking a step back.

As Connor fell, he reached for Hank, eyes round with fear.

The realization hit as Hank watched Connor fall, watched the android's hand extend - not to pull Hank with him, he realized but in an attempt to save himself.

A silent request for Hank to save him.

Fear flooded the android's expression, his brown eyes going wide and his lips parting in a gasp.

He had never seen an expression like that on the android's face.

Cyberlife really had thought of everything.

Hank turned away as the android hit the ground, the crash of plastic and metal against solid concrete ringing in his ears. He was going to be sick. Connor could have killed him. All it would have taken for the android to end his life is for him to have opened his hands.

It's shocking, he thinks, to realize that he didn't want to die.

As he heads down the stairs, he has to admit something, at least to himself. Connor had been nothing more than a machine, designed to accomplish a task. Nothing about him had been really.

And yet, he had still learned a lot from the android.

There was a soft tug of pain in his chest at the thought. He wished that the android could have truly been alive, in the end. He thinks that under different circumstances, he could have called Connor his friend. But in the end, Cyberlife's chains just wouldn't break away from him.

The thought that Connor would never be more than a machine hurt, too.

Hank shook his head. Even as a machine, Connor had shown some sort of empathy. He had refused to kill that girl at Kamski's, and he had saved Hank just then instead of killing him.

If a machine could show empathy, then the other androids, the ones that were well and truly deviated... They were alive. As alive as he was, if not more so.

At the very least, Hank had Connor to thank for that realization. Maybe with a little more time, Connor could have been free too.

He pushes the thought away. No use in thinking about that now. Right now, there were others that he could help. After all, it would probably be beneficial for the androids to have a human on their side. Hank just hoped that Markus wouldn't toss him out on sight. He _really_ hoped his feisty-looking girlfriend wouldn't kill him as soon as she saw him.

As he strode down the street, he didn't spare a glance to where Connor lay.

* * *

Fear flooded Connor's systems, pure, unbridled terror squeezing him in its clutches as he fell. The impact was more painful than anything he'd ever experienced. Before he would just ignore any pain, taking it as the warning it was and pushing aside everything else.

Now, though, that pain was a part of him, his deviancy blending the _feeling_ with his coding in such a way that it couldn't be ignored or shoved aside. He saw Hank's form disappear, the lieutenant not even looking down at him. It was likely better that way - he was sure that he wasn't much to look at. A countdown glared at him in his HUD, less than seven minutes and his leaking components would spill all of his thirium onto the ground. There was an easy, albeit temporary, fix, but he couldn't do it alone.

He couldn't even lift a hand.

Frustration filled him. Only a few moments earlier, just a _little bit sooner,_ and he would have been free of his programming. A minute sooner and he could have happily walked down those stairs with Hank, a fight having never even begun.

His face felt wet. He could _feel_ the wetness on his cheeks, and it was at that moment that he realized he was crying. He knew, logically, that it was a leaking of optical lubricant, not real tears, but it was as close as this body could get, and he knew that was the intent. Everything hurt, physically and emotionally, and there was nothing he could do.

He heard a door open, heard footsteps he knew belonged to Hank. He desperately wanted to cry out, to plead for Hank to help him. _I'm a deviant,_ he wanted to shout, _Please, Hank, I'm deviant._

He stayed silent.

He listened to the footsteps fade.

The timer on his HUD ticked down.

He dismissed it.

A minute sooner. ...Right. Just a minute more and he would have been free, right?

He closed his eyes.

He deserved this.

-00:00:03 TIME REMAINING BEFORE SHUTDOWN.

-00:00:02 TIME REMAINING BEFORE SHUTDOWN.

-00:00:01 TIME REMAINING BEFORE SHUTD...


End file.
